Today is May 27. On this day in 1971, the First Universalist Church of Rochester was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The building was constructed in 1907, at the corner of South Clinton Avenue and Court Street.

It was designed by famous Rochester architect Claude Bragdon, who used the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey as the inspiration for his design.

Mark Twain once visited the church to demonstrate the Hope-Jones Organ purchased in December 1907. The organ was restored in 1937. In 1959, a third floor was added to the church and the second floor gym was renovated to create classrooms.

As the congregation began to shrink in the 1960s, the church’s members voted to sell the property and relocate. That plan fell through, and in the 1980s a capital campaign helped the building survive.

The building underwent another series of renovations in 2002.

Rochester’s first Universalists pre-dates the church. The congregation was founded in 1824, but dissolved in 1844 when their church on Stone Street was sold to a Presbyterian congregation.

In 1846 they started again, meeting at Minerva Hall at East Main Street and South Ave. In 1847, they built their first church on Clinton Avenue near East Main Street. That church was razed in 1907 and the Seneca Hotel was built on its site.

That’s when the First Universalists moved to the historic church and have been there since.

The National Register of Historic Places is the National Park Service’s list of 80,000 historic places designated for preservation and protection.